In defence of C

[Alex Beamish]

On 10/26/05, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> Alex Beamish wrote:
>
> > From what I remember of APL, it was seriously terse -- someone
> > described it as "Chicken scratches crossed with Greek." Having
> > developed in Perl for a couple of years, I would say APL makes Perl
> > look like BASIC.
>
> During the brief time I worked with APL, the interface was a converted
> IBM selectric typewriter with a special "golf ball" and keyboard overlay
> to produce the chicken scratches.
>
> Alex is right about the terseness; I recall that programs were rarely
> more than 60 characters long. You'd type the handful of characters on
> the typewriter, hit enter, and stand back as reams of output spewed out.
> I would say that APL makes Perl look like COBOL.
>
> The best thing about APL to me was its acronym.


Definitely -- A Programming Language. It's almost the beginning of a
nerd-speak Abbott and Costello routine ..

Abbott: This language, what's it called?
Costello: It's A Programming Language.
A: Right, that what it is, but what's it called?
C: But ..

And the life insurance package from IBM (COBOL and 360 assembler) that my
Dad worked on and modified for his employer, Prudential Assurance? It was
called ALIS, short for (of course) A Life Insurance System. The modified
version was PRALIS, of course.

My mother often joked that ALIS (pronounced 'Alice') was The Other Wwoman.
Well, he did sometimes get late night calls from downtown ..

--
----------
Linux, Firefox and GMail .. what a combination.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/legacy/attachments/20051026/1710bf21/attachment.html>